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Thursday, April 7, 2011

Maria, Maria

Recently I've been rehearsing to do a show with the Brooklyn Philharmonic. It's a show for school-aged children where the symphony plays Broadway, jazz and ragtime music including selections from Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story. And guess who gets to be Maria? :)

The whole rehearsal process has been fun and I feel like I'm learning so much. Our choreographer has incorporated an array of latin dances with jazz dance and big lifts. I get to samba and salsa with high kicks and pirouettes.

In all my years of dancing though, this is the first time I am doing partnering where a man hoists me up in the air and I go flying or spinning or any other spectacular-ness.... and let me tell you, I love it! The closest experience I've had to this was in Brazil when I learned several styles of ballroom samba and other partner dances like fojo, and enjoyed being led around the dance floor. Other than that, all my partnering experience has been about weight sharing and cooperatively being lifted or tossed about.

All of a sudden I don't know how to hold my body or when to let go. I'm lucky to have a strong partner who I can trust, but I've spent the past few rehearsals just figuring out how to be. I feel like Baby in Dirty Dancing. Remember how she didn't know how to be lifted? Yeah that's me. Unlike her though, I definitely already know how to dance, I just need some guidance with the partnering. I also figured it out (mostly) by the end of a 3 hour rehearsal, with the help of my Patrick Swayze-esque partner.

I discovered that just like every thing else in my life, it's really just a leap of faith.